


A Deal

by HyourinmaruIce



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Dark One Belle, F/M, I found out how to get better tags, Spinner Rumpelstiltskin | Mr. Gold, just tag random stuff and stuff happens, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 22:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyourinmaruIce/pseuds/HyourinmaruIce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A CHALLENGE! I DONT REFUSE CHALLENGES. The challenge was from Repeatinglitanies to see if I could do this prompt - The Dark One Belle longs to have a child after centuries of loneliness. When she witnesses Baelfire’s unwavering devotion even after his father’s humiliation, she decides she wants a child just like him. But in order to achieve that, she would need Rumpelstiltskin’s help… - Without smut.</p><p>Dun dun dun, Yeah I took that challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She wore a cloak, her favorite green one with golden embroidery that resembled climbing vines, and smiled beneath the hood as she stepped outside her castle. It was a warm day, spring having left her gardens green and her castle warm, but she couldn’t be without her cloak. The town wasn’t likely to appreciate her disturbance to their market day.  
The walk to town was peaceful, quiet and without the normal rush of the road she was used to watching. Market day was her favorite day of the month in any season or time of year.  
It left her castle undisturbed and she was free to roam without the gawking that usually came with being seen.

The town itself, she tended to call it hers when she was talking to Regina or the others but it was independent, sat alone with outsiders being rare. Market day let those in the far corners of the town come out of the darkness they hid inside. It let the spinner from the edge of town set up a stall even though he wasn’t wanted and it let the old woman who sold apothecary supplies sell them in public and actually give advice to those who were buying. She felt bad for the ones who didn’t pay attention to her, she gave excellent advice.  
The stalls in town had already set up and Belle, with a wicked little smile that she just couldn’t suppress, began her rounds. It started with the butcher.

“I want a whole cow, preferably sliced and diced the proper way if you don’t mind,” She giggled at the man’s gawking, “What? Never had a customer before?”

The man soon recovered. He was tall, more brawn than brain, with a bald head and a wife on his arm. He moved quickly, gathering up the different pieces and eventually had her cow together. She smiled as she let purple smoke engulf it and take it to her tower. She did so enjoy the look upon his face when she handed him the golden coins of her trade.

“Thank you for doing that so quickly,” A wink, and then she was moving on to the book merchant where a little boy was also browsing.

He glanced at her shyly, but unafraid, “You look…. familiar,” His voice was small, but powerful.

“’I would hope so, I’m quite the celebrity I’m told,” She began to pick out the books she hadn’t already read. The book merchant, always a favorite in her mind, smiled at her and accepted the coins she gave him ahead of time.

“Are you going to buy all the books?” The boy almost looked saddened by the prospect.

She giggled, “Not at all, I just give what I think they are worth. Books are the most valuable of things you know,”

“Oh,” He turned away from her and continued his inspection of the books. To her surprise, when he had picked out a single book, the book seller sneered at him and took the book before the boy could open it.

“I’m afraid that’s out of your price range boy,” He put the book back and Belle tilted her head as she watched. She’d never seen the book seller refuse a man a book, or boy. Reading was important and she paid him between markets to make sure he kept a good selection. 

“But I believe,” She stopped the boy from walking away, the boy’s unhappiness clear, “It is in mine. Would you wrap the book for me?”

The book seller, frightened by the sudden change in her mood (Which was his fault anyway), did as she asked and handed her the book. The other books she selected were quickly wrapped in purple smoke and taken away. She smiled at the man.

Then, without a second thought, she wound a tendril of magic around his neck and watched him squirm, “It seems to me, that one should respect books more when they sell them,”  
He sputtered and howled, the onlookers stepped around the scene and avoided it. They knew he had brought it upon himself and she smiled at that fact.

Then the boy placed a hand on her arm, “Please don’t, if he didn’t treat me like that everyone in the village would treat him like that. Please leave him be,”  
She dropped the man before turning to the boy, his brown eyes filled with compassion and a certain amount of loneliness, “And who are you to earn such ire? I do believe anyone should be able to read,”

The boy smiled, “But not everyone can buy at the same price,”

He didn’t know who she was, and perhaps that was why he hadn’t removed his hand from her hand, but everyone of the market stall men knew to look for a green cloak on market day. People avoided her green cloak, it must had spread throughout the town who the green cloak with golden embroidery belonged to, so why was he being kind?

“Why is that?” She turned and offered him her arm, a smile of genuine nature threatened to broach her features when he took it.

“Well, my papa is the spinner. As much as I love him, and I know he’s not a coward, other people don’t. So we learn to accept it and accept the exorbitant prices,”

“Fancy word,” she hummed softly, it was interesting to see someone refused books with a wide vocabulary.

“Papa taught it to me,” The boy didn’t try to see her face, hidden by her hood, or ask why her skin was golden and scaled. He chatted with her about books and the vocabulary of the average towns person. 

When they finally reached his father’s stall, a decrepit wooden contraption that was obviously built by the boys hands rather than the man who was winding the wool behind it, that she recognized the town outcast. The boy grinned, finally releasing her arm and rushing into his father’s arms with a grin, gesturing to the woman he had met.

The man nearly fell over his chair, “I’m so sorry if my son bothered you, he does tend to talk to strangers,”

It was obvious, the fidgeting and the stuttered speech, he knew who she was. And she was having such a lovely conversation with his son. 

“My boy never hesitates it seems,” Then the man chuckled, so it appeared he didn’t know who she was, straightening his chair with a small smile, “He does tend to bring in strangers… Do you have children stranger?” 

No, and pain struck her heart at the though, she didn’t, “No, but I haven’t found the right man to have children with,”

The man smiled at her and her heart, the broken cracked thing it was, fluttered. She handed him the book and watched as his smile turned to that of wonderment, “Thank you,”  
She’d never had someone thank her before.

Four market days later, the first three the boy had come up and every-time she had wished he wouldn’t. She felt like she mothered his more and more as each market day passed. The father was named Rumpelstiltskin and he made excellent wools and threads, though she never bought any because it was there, in the back of her mind, that she wished he wouldn’t know who she was. Perhaps… he might be the man she was looking for. Bae certainly was a wonderful boy, she rather wanted a child like him.

“Miss Belle,” Bae grinned at her, his wide smile covered partially by the book in his hands, “You found me this time,”

“Indeed I did Bae,” She pulled deeper into her hood, her left had reached into a pocket and fingered the potion that rest inside, “Your father about? I thinkI might be buying this market day,”

Bae bounced up from the seat and grinned at her, “I’ll go get him right away! He was just bringing up some new colors. He said you inspired them,”

She smiled to herself, quite aware Bae couldn’t see her face, “Did he now?”

But Bae was already gone and up the road. She smiled at the boy’s antics, he was so cute sometimes. She shuddered as she remembered scolding him for getting his clothes dirty just  
last market day. She needed a child of her own and then she wouldn’t worry about Bae. He’d just be a friend.

He came back a few minutes later, huffing and puffing with arms loaded with the threads and wool. He dumped them upon the stall and began to organize them by color and thickness. “So what color did you want? Did you want green? I make the green dye!” 

The boy’s genuine excitement was contagious, she grinned, “How about gold?”

“Oh,” He frowned, “Papa has the gold. He’ll be here but do you want any other color?”

 

Belle examined the offerings, it was obvious which ones had been done by the man and which by the boy, “How about that lovely blue?”

He giggled and quickly handed it to her, she handed him a golden coin that he gawked at, “This is too much Belle!”

She rolled her eyes and giggled, “You’ve seen me pay for books,” She put the wool into her cloak pocket, the one without breakables.

Bae pursed his lips but accepted her overpayment, obviously wary of not making money and, that, she could understand. Rumpelstiltskin came into view a few seconds later, “Good day Belle, Bae said you were buying today,”

“Yes, I do believe I’ve run out of gold…” She didn’t want to add ‘colored’ because her thread was actually gold, “thread. I need some, the embroidery on my cloak needs to be redone,”

He looked at her cloak, raising a single eyebrow and turning to Bae, “Why don’t you go get Miss Belle a basket eh? I believe there is one at the house,”

The boy nodded, obediently taking off towards the home Belle knew they shared together.

“Miss Belle, that’s real gold and both you and I know it. You don’t need to buy from us if you have a better spinner to turn to ma’am,” He smiled boyishly, tilting his head, “But if there  
is something else you need, I’d do whatever I can for you,”

“Then I have a deal to make,” Her hand fingered the vial and clenched around it, “And I have a sort of confession to give,”

She’d never seen a man’s eyes so wide, but when the word ‘Yes’ came out of his mouth, she’d never been so excited.


	2. Enchanted Libraries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the castle...

Her library had every book she could ever want when it came to the non-fictional world. The fiction books she sought out booksellers for were delicately put on the shelf every week and then picked up and read at least once a month or so. Unfortunately, she had the tendency to leave books about when she wasn’t finished or she wasn’t in the mood to finish their stories.

Hence why she was hesitant as Rumpelstiltskin and Bae approached her door but everyone knew her work involved books. She needn’t worry, it didn’t matter what they thought anyway. They now knew who she was, knew who the person they spoke and visited every week was.

The potion felt heavy in her cloak pocket, much heavier than the wool that she’d bought from Bae. Its presence hung like a noose around her neck that she couldn’t get rid of.  
No matter how hard she pulled at it.

She stepped inside, doors flung open the sides, and breathed a sigh. It was home. The center table was covered in her books and the materials needed to write them. The walls of her main room were lined with shelves and Belle just had to smile.

Bae gasped behind her. With an amused smirk, she watched the boy run forward and begin to look at the books on the shelves. 

“Bae, don’t touch those!” Rumpelstiltskin darted forward, and she noticed the way his limp did not hinder him. It was odd, to think a man concerned about his son could ignore the pain that must throb in his foot.

She patted her cloak pocket.

“Well then, I’m sure Bae will be kept busy with the various books and nicknacks I have lying about,” She cast a meaningful look at Bae, “But if anything is damaged I’m turning you into a snail,”

The boy chuckled. Did he think she was kidding? Rumpelstiltskin looked at her, a mixture of terror and awe on his face. It was better this way she decided. It was better to see terror she was used to, even if she wasn’t used to it being Rumpelstiltskin who directed it at her. 

“Rumpelstiltskin, I believe you and I have business to conduct,”

The man slowly nodded, casting one look at Bae before following her out of the main hall and up the stairs to the right. The large, double doors of the castle slammed shut as they reached the next floor.

“Belle?” She heard his questioning tone behind her, his footsteps were soft against the cold stone of her floors.

“Yes Rumpelstiltskin?” 

The man was silent for a few seconds, seeming to take in everything around him. The bleached look of the walls, the candles that flickered every few steps, the oriental rug they walked on.

“Why did you tell me who you were?”

Belle sighed, “And, what, might you mean by that?”

The man snorted, “You could have easily just made our…” He gulped, the sound echoing in the hall, “Deal without telling Bae, or I, who you were. It seems slightly counter-productive to tell the man you want to… make a deal with… that you could easily kill him,”

She imagined that she heard sarcasm in Rumpelstiltskin’s voice, just enough to make her think that he wasn’t as scared as she thought. But then again, perhaps she didn’t really hear it and was just desperate. What she might be desperate for, she wouldn’t know. 

“I don’t lie,”

“I didn’t say you would,”

They walked a little further, another set of double doors coming up ahead of them. The brown looked like home to Belle’s eyes, allowing her to relax slightly. Belle turned her head to watch him out of the corner of her eye, “Then what did you say?”

The man, his eyes dark and deep, watched her, tilting his head and offering a smile, “I’m saying that you were overly generous,”

She snorted, casting the doors open to reveal her library. Books whizzed about in the air, ladders moved to try and keep up. Everything was running smoothly as she chucked off her cloak onto the nearest bookshelf. A book picked it up a few seconds later and carried it away. 

She heard Rumpelstiltskin gasp and then she cringed, “I do not believe it is normal for ladies being bedded to have a golden pallor, no?”

She waited for Rumpelstiltskin to respond, waited for the sneer and the yelling. Waited for the proclamation that would allow him to back out of his deal. 

“You’re beautiful,” 

She paused, every muscle in her body taunt as she turned and remembered that her potion lay in her cloak pocket. She tried to breathe evenly, “Excuse me?”

Rumpelstiltskin chuckled and tilted his head, “I have to say, when I thought you liked gold I didn’t think it was because of that …. your hands.. I should have noticed,”

She almost choked, “What are you going on about?” A book whirred by her head, dropping the potion into her palm as it sped by.

“You’re skin, it’s beautiful,” Rumpelstiltskin was watching her the way a boy might watch his first love, and as much as she desperately hoped, it was not to be. 

She scoffed, “Lying? Really Rumpelstiltskin? Isn’t that beneath the spinner?”

He tilted his head more, just the tiniest fraction, and she realized he didn’t look scared anymore. He looked… relaxed. Comfortable even. The books were flying by and he did nothing to move out of their way or cringe. He was staring at her, taking in what she looked like, and she could only stare back.

“I don’t lie Belle,” Rumpelstiltskin’s voice was that of a murmur, “And you need to believe that,”

Belle clenched her fist, and the bottle broke.


	3. Potion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Potion breaking

It took her a couple seconds to watch as the white liquid, before hidden by the darkened glass she’d spun herself, now dripped down her fingers and onto the floor of her library. Her focus shifted to the ground then, watching the potion seep its way into her feet through the thin shoes that she only wore when going out.

Rumpelstiltskin’s voice jarred her concentration, “Belle, what’s happening?”

He called her Belle, not Dark One or The Librarian, just Belle. She glanced at him, watching his face crease with concern as she felt the potion take hold.

She glanced back down at herself. She, in her unwavering determination to make Rumpelstiltskin as comfortable as possible when proceeding with the deal, had made a glamor potion. She would look like the woman he was meant to be with, the woman he would appreciate and be able to make love to without hesitation.

“It didn’t work,” she murmured to herself, glancing down at her legs and seeing the same pale gold hue that she usually wore.

Rumpelstiltskin tilted his head, “What didn’t work? What was that Belle?”

She glanced between him and her legs, wondering idly what might prompt her potion to not work. She’d done it all very carefully, double checking herself at every step because a glamor like that was hard to accomplish and she had wanted this deal to work.

She wanted children. She wanted someone badly.

She groaned, “WHY DIDN’T IT WORK?” She picked up the nearest book and threw it. It smacked into a bookshelf before shaking itself off and flying away.

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes widened, “Belle-”

“SHUT UP!” She growled, “It. Was. Supposed. To. Work.”

He still wasn’t frightened and she didn’t understand. She didn’t understand how he couldn’t be frightened.

“What was Belle?” How could he be so calm?

“MY POTION!” She knew she was screaming. She must have been a sight, pacing back and forth as she pulled at her hair and shouted, “MY POTION! I DESIGNED IT FOR YOU! I USED YOUR HAIR! I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT! WHY DID IT NOT WORK?” She rounded on him, “And even if it wasn’t the right hair it would have still changed me because SOMEONE’s hair was put in that potion and I don’t even understand how it couldn’t change me!”

Rumpelstiltskin began to look amused and she wanted to slap the smirk off his face. He sensed this and began to walk towards hers, closing the gap that had been there before and gently placing his hand on her arm.

“What was it supposed to do exactly?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

She glared at him, roughly pulling away, “It doesn’t matter now,”

He followed her as she plunged deeper into her library, twisting this way and that until she was in front of her reading area, he kept calling out to her.

“Belle?” He panted once he had caught up to her. They stood in front of the fireplace now, the flames flicking up and eating at the red bricks that created its prison, “Belle tell me,”  
He was pleading with her, after months of seeing him and not seeing him she wasn’t very resistant to him. The push and pull of having someone… close… was driving her nuts. She was doing things she normally wouldn’t do.

“The potion was supposed to change me,” She growled as she picked up another helpless book to throw, Rumpelstiltskin merely watched as it hit the top of the fireplace before it flew away. The other books in her vicinity cowered away from her. They’d never done that before.

A small one tucked itself into her hand and she glanced down at it, “Humming Birds,”

She giggled, “Humming birds,”

Rumpelstiltskin tilted his head and looked between her and the book she now gently placed down on the table nearby. The books settled then.

She cleared her throat, “It was supposed to change me to the woman that best suited your Psyche, I did not want you uncomfortable with out deal,”

Rumpelstiltskin began to laugh and she turned away from the fires, the books, towards him and his dark eyes. So much darker than she was used to, she might remove a few curtains   
in her library to see his eyes shine. Though it was unlikely he would be coming back.

“Bae was right, I’m an idiot,” Then Rumpelstiltskin stepped forward and slanted his lips across hers.

She couldn’t think.


End file.
